"White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America" (Encore Presentation)

(Note: This program originally aired back in August.) On this edition of ST, we speak with the author and historian Nancy Isenberg, who is the T. Harry Williams Professor of American History at LSU, writes regularly for Salon.com, and was formerly on the History faculty here at The University of Tulsa. Isenberg joins us to discuss her bestselling new book, "White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America." It is, as one critic for The Boston Globe has noted, "an eloquent synthesis of the country's history of class stratification, one that questions whether the United States is indeed a place where all are created equal. 'White Trash' powerfully unites four centuries of history -- economic, political, cultural, and pseudo-scientific -- to show how thoroughly the notion of class is woven into the national fabric." It's also, as Dwight Garner wrote in The New York Times, "an eloquent volume that is more discomforting and more necessary than a semitrailer filled with new biographies of the founding fathers and the most beloved presidents." And further, from The Atlanta Journal Constitution: "What makes people whom Trump has never cared about before this election so eager to see him as their spokesman? What in tarnation do they see in his vague bluster and thinly coded racist remarks? For answers to these and other questions, look no further than Nancy Isenberg's fascinating and unsettling new book...[a] meticulously researched survey of the class system in America."

Related Content

On this edition of StudioTulsa, we speak with the author, scholar, and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, who grew up in rural Oklahoma and is now based in San Francisco. She is the daughter of a tenant farmer and part-Indian mother, and she's been active in the international Indigenous People's Movement for more than four decades.

On this edition of ST, we offer a discussion of the life and work of Thomas Nast (1840-1902), who is commonly thought of as "the father of American political cartooning." Highly influential in his time and still admired by artists, columnists, writers, and cartoonists today, Nast might be best known for his work -- done before, during, and after the Civil War -- for Harper's Weekly. He also, quite famously, created the modern illustrated version of Santa Claus...as well as the elephant as a symbol for the G.O.P. Our guest is Dr.

(Note: This interview originally aired back in September.) Our guest is Erika Lee, who teaches history at the University of Minnesota, where she's also the Vecoli Chair in Immigration History and Director of the Immigration History Research Center. Lee tells us about her widely acclaimed book, "The Making of Asian America: A History" (Simon & Schuster). As was noted of this volume in the pages of The New York Times Book Review: "Sweeping....

On Sunday, after Bernie Sanders' commanding wins in the Alaska, Hawaii and Washington state Democratic presidential caucuses, Leslie Lee III, an American freelance writer living in Japan, tweeted, "I knew it. I knew if Bernie won Hawaii it would magically become a white state."

And then he tweeted again: "Ever since I voted for Bernie, I've been bingewatching Friends. #BernieMadeMeWhite."

Lee said he wrote that to contradict a narrative he sees playing out in the race for the Democratic nomination.

A grand jury's decision that a police officer shouldn't face charges over the death of Staten Island man Eric Garner has sparked anger and protests — along with a Twitter conversation about the idea that police treat people differently based on their race.